


What You Order After Order 66

by Above_average_stormtrooper



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Order 66 (Star Wars), Order 66 Angst, Post-Order 66 (Star Wars), Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27856133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Above_average_stormtrooper/pseuds/Above_average_stormtrooper
Summary: It's a cold cold night when Commander Cody and Commander Bly go out for soup after Order 66.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	What You Order After Order 66

The last time I ever saw Bly, we met at the barracks gate. No armor, no weapons, just the warmest clothes we could find in the bin on the way out the door. It was a cold night on Formeht, especially after the humid sinkholes of Utapau, where I had just come from; or the fetid jungles of Felucia, where Bly had just been. From the look on his face, Bly was still somewhere in that wilderness.

“Bly,” I said to him.

The clone stirred, brown eyes wide as he looked into mine.

“Yeah,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Yuktai soup?”

Bly cocked his head at me before remembering we were going out to grab a bite.

“Oh,” he said, eyes wide again. “Yeah, definitely.”

We walked, hugging ourselves against the bracing cold. The streets were empty save for the thumps of our boots and the mist of our breath. We were quiet, much quieter than we used to be. It had only been a month since it happened, but it felt like an age. Neon signs flashed over darkened storefronts, buzzing that much louder in the silence of the sleepy town. Luthyr Falls was a small settlement on a desolate moon: a refueling point for warships and deep-space haulers on their way to wilder worlds. During the war, crossroads like this one offered farflung soldiers a rare chance to catch up on war stories. Clones loved it, and now I could see small groups of them moving through the streets, hugging themselves against the cold like we were.

Bly sniffed, and my heart skipped a beat. What was it? A smell in the air? Droids? Blaster fire? But it was only Bly’s nose going runny in the wind. He wiped it with the back of his mitten, and I tried to relax.

The war is over, soldier, I thought to myself. Get a grip already.

With relief, I looked up to see the familiar, bowl-shaped neon sign hanging over the soup diner. A welcome cup of Yuktai would do us good, I hoped. Maybe loosen up these frozen lips. We headed in, and I immediately wanted to turn the other way.

A Twi’lek girl, her orange lekku draped behind her shoulders, approached us with a pair of menus. I turned to Bly, who stood rooted to the spot.

“You want to leave?” I whispered to him.

Bly stiffened, looked down at the floor.

“No,” he said. “No it’s-- too cold out there. Come on.”

I followed Bly’s lead as he accepted the menus, walked to the open booth and sat down. Small groups of troopers whispered amongst themselves at the other tables. I noticed their eyes ricocheting between the Twi’lek waitress and Bly like blaster bolts in a trash compactor.

“Hey,” I said to him. “We really don’t have to be here. There’s a roast noona joint down the street. We can just-”

“It’s fine-” he glared at me. “We come here every time we’re on Formeht. Come on, let’s just get some hot chow in us and we’ll feel better.”

I bit my lip and nodded, looking down on the menu. Not that I needed it: Bly was right, we came here every time we found ourselves on this backwater moon. We always ordered the same thing, too. Clones, after all. We sat in silence, waiting for the Twi'lek to return. It was not the comfortable kind of silence. It was the explosive kind, the one where you’re afraid to pull the pin because you know it will hurt too much.

I took a sharp breath.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bly said, eyes still fixed on the menu.

I held my breath, then exhaled slowly, like I do when lining up a shot.

“Well, what if I do?” I asked.

Bly’s eyes shot up at mine. The same brown eyes as my own.

“Well then, do what you want,” he said, before turning back to the menu.

I stared at Bly as he pretended to look through the soups with their endless combinations of noodles, roots and meats. Usually by now we would have ordered a few drinks as we traded stories about the latest Obi-Wan antics or Aayla drama. Bly’s cheeks would be glowing red as he spoke about her, his beautiful Twi’lek Jedi. Then his brow would furrow at the mention of Quinlan Vos, the older male Jedi who always seemed to be in the picture. 

Those three always had a strange relationship, I thought. Two Jedi and an age-accelerated clone commander. Who would have thought?

I looked out the window into the darkened street, my reflection hanging over it like a ghost. I had that same distant look in my eyes as Bly did. Obi-Wan was gone, along with the rest of the Jedi. The war was over, and now we clones had to face the question we spent the last three years ignoring.

“What would you boys like to eat?” the Twi’lek waitress asked. 

Bly and I jumped in our seats. Somehow she had emerged at the table without either of us noticing. Bly stammered and looked back at the menu.

“Two large Yuktai soups,” I said, ordering for both of us. “Mild.”

The waitress smirked as she wrote down the orders. It was probably the same dish every trooper ordered, down to the spice level. Growing up with bland Kamino food tended to blunt one’s taste buds. She collected the menus and returned to the kitchen, leaving Bly to stare at the table.

I ran my hand through my hair, wincing as I saw a few grey ones fall out. I wasn’t that old, at least not in standard years. But the war had its way with time.

“Hey,” I said, reaching a hand out across the table. “I feel it too. I followed the order, same as you. They were a threat to the Chancellor- er, the Emperor. We did what good soldiers do.”

Bly scowled.

“Easy for you to say,” he murmured. “Yours got away. I bet he’s still out there somewhere.”

I sighed.

“I still gave the command to fire, Bly,” I said. “I watched him fall, all the way to the bottom of that sinkhole. Obi-Wan was my friend, just as much as Aayla was yours.”

“No,” Bly said, looking back at me with reddened eyes. “She was more than a friend to me. You know that.”

I nodded, meeting his gaze.

“And I didn’t just order my men to fire, like you did,” he went on. “I did it myself. We did it together, my men and I. We shot her in the back and kept shooting her, until we’d all run our clips dry. She didn’t even have a body after that, just a pile of charred meat.”

Bly stared back at the table and put his head in his hands. I sat still, listening to the buzz of the neon outside and the whispered chatter of the troopers nearby.

“You see the new armor we’re getting?” one asked.

“Yeah, looks hideous,” said another. “Doubt it could even stop a spitball.”

“I hear we can’t paint our unit colors on them,” said a third. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Well, look on the bright side, Hop,” said the first. “War’s over, so at least we won’t be getting shot at any more.”

Hop chuckled, but the second clone grunted.

“Oh, they’ll think up something to shoot at us,” he said. “Even if they have to work at it.”

The table fell silent, and I returned my attention to Bly. He was still staring at our table, hands on his head. The soup arrived, but Bly hardly noticed.

“Hey,” I said, gently as I could. “Trooper, chow’s here. Come on, let’s get some food in you.”

I pushed his bowl towards him, and Bly slowly uncaged his arms. His eyes were red now, and he sniffed again as he brought a spoon to his lips. I brought my own spoon up, but then I made a loud slurp that shattered the silence of that lonesome diner. Bly snorted soup and started choking on the hot fluid while troopers nearby broke out laughing. Within moments the gloomy place was filled with loud slurping and belching noises as the others joined in.

Bly’s shoulders shook as he coughed and chuckled at the same time. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard as the other troopers added their own crude noises to the chorus.

“Oy, Crusher,” one trooper shouted across the diner to another. “Make that noise General Fisto made when he ate colo claw fish!”

“You mean this one?” said Crusher, who pursed his lips to make an ear-curdling sound halfway between a deflating balloon and a dying Reek. The whole diner erupted in laughter, and the Twi’lek waitress poked her head out from the kitchen door only to roll her eyes and close the door again.

By now, Bly was tearing up, and we were all clutching our sides with some kind of desperation as we dove back into the old jokes and stories. 

“So we’re about to climb into this abandoned mine shaft, and it’s darker than space, so I’m attaching a flashlight to my deece,” I said, some time later. By now the other troopers had gathered to our side of the diner so they could hear all our priceless Jedi stories.

“And General Kenobi puts a hand on my shoulder,” I went on, “and he says softly, ‘No Cody, don’t do that.’ I stop and turn to him, confused. ’Well, why not sir?’ I ask. And he says, ‘Because I am a Jedi, and in the Jedi Order, attachments are forbidden.'”

The diner crackled with laughter again as troopers slapped the tables and each other's backs It was classic Obi-Wan to make that kind of joke before a firefight.

“He always was a clever one, that Kenobi,” Crusher said.

“Obi-Wag, we used to call him,” said Hop. “Behind his back, of course.”

I smiled at the thought of my mischievous old General. But at the same time I fought to push aside my last memory of him, the one where I watched him plummet down that sinkhole on Utapau. Down, down into the darkness below. The laughter faded, except for Bly, whose shoulders shook as he snickered across the table from me.

“Attachments,” Bly said to himself, clutching his sides. He pounded a fist on the table, making the empty soup bowls tremble. “Ha!”

The troopers shuffled their feet and glanced around nervously.

“It wasn’t that funny, mate,” one murmured, but still Bly kept laughing, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

I cleared my throat and stood up, tossing a few credits on the table.

“Night’s up for us, boys,” I said. “Got an early ride to catch tomorrow, and I would rather brave that cold while the soup’s still warm in me. Good hunting to you all.”

The troopers murmured their good-byes and made farewell salutes as I helped the still-chuckling Bly to his feet and guided him out the door. A cold blast of wind met us outside, and I pulled my cap down tighter over my head. Our boots thumped once more on the near-frozen streets as Bly’s laughter gave way to sobs.

I walked silently as Bly cried, throwing my arm over his shoulders to keep him steady. The sobs were something uncontrollable now, like a beast let free. He took ragged gasps in between wiping the tears away with his mitten.

“Attachments,” he breathed. “Forbidden.”

I rubbed his shoulder.

“I know,” I said, trying to keep my own despair at bay. “I know.”

The light was harsh back inside the barracks, and we stood for a moment blinking against the brightness. Bly drew away as he wiped the last tears from his face. 

“Where you off to tomorrow?” I asked.

My friend sighed, taking off his hat and rubbing his short crop of dark hair.

“Coruscant,” he said. “The old Triple Zero.”

I whistled.

“Hobnobbing with the bigwigs, then?” I asked. “Going to make a run for Senate?”

Bly laughed.

“More like a run for a Senator’s daughter,” he said. “Or whatever they tell me to do. How about you?”

“Kamino. Going to train some recruits for the Imperial Army.”

Bly raised his eyebrows.

“Birth-borns?” he asked.

I nodded.

“We’ll see how bad they are,” I said. “At least compared to us.”

Bly smiled, his eyes still red and the tracks of tears half-frozen to his cheeks.

“There’s no one better.”

I smiled back, then offered a hand. Bly took it, and we embraced. 

“Keep in touch, all right?” I said, smelling the other man’s cold skin. “And remember tonight. We’re here for you. I’m here for you.”

We drew apart, and Bly nodded.

“You too, Cody,” he said. “You too.”

Then he turned away and walked to his billet. It was strange seeing Bly outside of his armor, a light layer of snow on his jacketed shoulders. He tried to breathe some warmth into his cold fingers. Then a pair of blast doors closed behind him and he was gone. Years later, I realized I was too. We all were. We just didn’t know it yet.


End file.
